ravitation

> Personally, I know that I need a focus for my intellectual life.

Would your abilities feel stretched by being a cashier? How about a janitor? Waiter?

These jobs are what "work" actually is for most people. I think most people could go without doing those things.

Intellectual stimulation, or goals that stretch one's abilities, don't have to come from work (and for most people those things and "work" are hardly related at all). Therefore, saying we (as humans) "need" work is generally incorrect (at least for the reasons you stated) since most people don't even get what you say we "need" from work anyway.

I don't know if it really feels incomplete, instead the article seems to make a more compelling case for the opposite of the headline actually being true.

If we assume the following premise from the article is true...

> The only way balancing is going to be easy is if one or the other side isn’t worth much, and that would be a shame.

The article makes a much more compelling case that the life side is worth quite a lot, and the work side isn't worth much... Meaning work/life balance should be easy.

> But I don't buy that this is true for very many jobs in tech.

Not only that, but it's probably true even less often when looking at the totality of jobs everywhere.

I mean you responded as if you think I was using HN comments as a representative sample and not as an illustrative anecdote...

> Even "essentially no access to services" is closer access to services than the common exurban commuting distance.

Okay... But it's not a one-to-one replacement... A single two-way commute might be replaced by significant drives to the grocery store, restaurants, schools, after-school activities, etc...

Honestly, despite all of this discussion, I think the idea that commutes will be broadly eliminated long-term is the bigger assumption than general suburban driving being a net positive compared to commuting or vice versa.

Eliminating the commute, when it is replaced by living in a suburb with essentially no access to services without driving (especially when there was access before), can still be a net negative... That's the point of the anecdote...

While I agree we don't really know, I think it is quite likely to have a negative effect.

Take, for example, these comments, which are full of people who have left NYC, a place where you can function entirely without a car, and moved to places like Texas and Florida, where you, for the most part, cannot. Sure they might not be commuting anymore (which was likely by public transit anyway), but they are now driving several times a day, likely relatively far distances, when they were not before.

> My working hypothesis is that people in general want to live in California like places, if they can afford it.

This is my general thinking as well, and it happens to fit with my current life experience.

I'm unconvinced that there has been, generally speaking, a fundamental change in the preferred environment people wish to live in; instead it seems more likely that traditionally popular American urban areas are just too expensive and offer relatively little (compared to other parts of the world) in terms of services to justify living there... Even for those that might otherwise choose to.

The larger problem is not simply getting access to medicaid, it's also that the US defines poverty essentially based on access to medicaid... Where a non-trivial portion of the population does not qualify for medicaid, but are also far from being financially secure.

Lol.

Lol. Ignoring the general absurdity here, none of this has to do with the basis of reading/writing, which in English is a set of phonetic letters. I've described why these must be memorized.

>Well you don't need to convince me of that since I admit as much in my original post!

Ok, I guess in your degree program the only difference is that you sit around in a lab instead of a lecture hall learning those fundamental things then? Because I'm not referring to some trivial amount of fundamental information... I'm referring to, roughly, the amount of information covered in 3 one hour lectures a week.

> I can only speak to my experience advising dual CS and Chemistry majors. The ratio of lab to class hours for them is 1:2, and worse when you add electives. So that's the basis for my statement. YMMV.

Ok, I'm citing directly from my university's course catalog (and also the courses I took at several universities) so YMMV.

Ok... I was responding more specifically to...

>the standard sequence is just year after year of memorizing facts and definitions with very little comparable lab time

And I compared the lab and lecture time... and they are very similar (essentially equal)...

I didn't choose to respond to your overall ideas about a chemistry degree because that would require convincing you that there is quite a bit of fundamental information needed to make those labs useful (and efficient) and there was already a great misunderstanding regarding the amount of time chemistry students spend in the lab.

You cannot reasonably intuit the sounds that letters make, or the meaning of combinations of letters without some underlying phonetic information. Your ability to recognize those patterns is built upon learning the meaning of words and letters as I described (not to mention whether what you're doing is pattern recognition or pattern memorization).

You are just wrong in every possible way.

I mean you are just wrong. You memorize what sound (well sounds) the letter "a" makes, which is of course fundamental to being able to write because English uses an alphabet. You might argue that reading isn't writing, but the two are interdependent (or at least writing generally dependent on reading).

Not to mention memorizing how to physically write (i.e. what you're talking about with handwriting)...

I assume you think I mean composition or something, which is of course extremely obviously not what I meant... But to develop that skill of "writing" that you're talking about requires memorization of the fundamentals... Which applies quite broadly to other disciplines...

>Take chemistry for example. All of chemistry should be in a laboratory setting. All of it. It’s a perfect hands on discipline, yet the standard sequence is just year after year of memorizing facts and definitions with very little comparable lab time.

I mean this is just... Incorrect. High school chemistry (generally the first time it's called chemistry and not science) is often taught in a lab (I assume mainly a function of whether lab facilities are available). Undergraduate general chemistry and organic chemistry generally have a required lab component that is required to be taken concurrently (this is even true at community colleges). Using general chemistry as an example, the lab portion is usually 1 three hour (at least) class per week, while lecture is 3 one hour classes per week (organic chemistry is essentially the same). More advanced chemistry might not have lab components (e.g. physical chemistry), but the foundations are almost always at least combined with a lab.

It's somewhat amusing to see someone write a lengthy rant against testing because memorizing information is archaic, when the ability to write, at least at the start, is learned this way.

The most obvious example why you're wrong is learning a second language. Even learning a language outside of a classroom generally requires memorization of fundamental vocabulary (and sometimes a writing system); it therefore makes sense that a class teaching a second language would test students on this memorization.

Now, other fields might not be so obvious, but they require many things to be quickly accessible, much in the same way that one might need quick access to a word or a character with a second language. A biologist needs to know and understand the central dogma, an engineer needs to understand mechanical stress, and a chemist needs to be able to read a structural formula; they need to be able to do these things essentially instantly (and understand them intuitively) to be able to even discuss more complex topics, because complex information builds on simple information. Hence it makes sense to make sure those pieces of information are understood and readily available before sending a student off to a more advanced topic.

It's a choice funded by the automobile and airline lobbies.

The Texas Triangle has a higher population density than France, a relative abundance of space between major cities, and four major metropolitan areas... But it's private companies trying to build high-speed rail, not Amtrak. The idea that it's a geography problem, at least for regional rail lines, is not very compelling.

These are long term problems for a development shop that is 2-3 people, getting work that allows for survival and growth is the problem now. An external partner, as long as they are facilitating the development of relationships and the contract rates are reasonable, are worth quite a lot. Pretty much every successful small consulting firm I've been a part of has leveraged at least one partnership like this, even if they don't perceive it as this kind of "rainmaker" relationship.

This is all true, but the "rainmaker" doesn't have to be the CEO, or just one person, or even work at the company. An alternative is to find an external "rainmaker," an example that I've often seen is small consulting firms that focus on things other than development (e.g. design or organization), or focus on a different type of development (e.g. CAD/CAE), that need reliable partners to bring onto their own projects.

This is probably less good long term, but it depends on what you're trying to do as a development shop, and doesn't necessitate career changes.

Technically in your framing, there still would be a headwind (i.e. things limiting the rate of the acceleration).

Either way, this framing only works in very specific contexts, for example "renewables" or "many countries," many of which we'd arguably make progress on regardless (e.g. the cost of batteries would decrease over time regardless of the impetus of climate change), so it isn't very useful. Global emissions continue to increase, so, if we apply this framing more broadly, the net velocity is still negative (though acceleration has increased). As before, I'd also argue that simply increasing acceleration (towards reducing emissions/mitigating climate change) would happen regardless (e.g. as fossil fuel scarcity increases, usage of alternatives would increase), and still is not very useful.

If this is the framing of the article, it frames it this way very poorly, as you said. Instead it presents headwind vs. tailwind as two alternatives (i.e. "[r]ather than [..] we now have [...]") as opposed to things you'd always have (i.e. forces for vs. forces opposed).

>It is all relative.

Hence the "net" part of what I said... All of what you said is fairly self-evident...

The article essentially argues to focus on the soft breeze at our backs instead of the hurricane in our face, which is a bit ridiculous, and only helps the political and financial forces that are the root cause of the hurricane.

>If we can achieve this progress without real political or financial support, think how quickly it could change with it. Rather than trying to power through a headwind, we now have the wind at our backs.

Obviously the idea that climate change (or 99.9% of things really) is capable of driving humanity extinct is absurd; but this is essentially the opposite message and equally wrong. I can imagine what it would be like if we had real political and/or financial support, but I'm not sure that there's a lot of evidence, at least here in the United States, that we're all that close to substantial support in either area.

In all honesty, it's hard to not read this as a technologist/neoliberal hype piece. "We don't have political support or money, but technology and the market will save us."

One thing that's somewhat amusing is the set of examples given to support this narrative. "Coal is effectively dead in many countries." Except that coal being dead in Sweden or France is essentially meaningless when roughly 60-70% of the power in China and India comes from coal. "Renewable prices are falling rapidly." This is mostly looking at solar and wind, which are difficult to implement for a variety of physical reasons regardless of price per kWh. "The price of batteries has fallen by 97 percent in the past 30 years." Except that modern battery storage is still horribly inefficient when compared to, for example, oil or natural gas.

Of course these problems are solvable, but it's hard to see how one could frame this genuinely and in good faith as some kind of net tailwind.

From the MIT Technology Review article...

>Some researchers sensed that the young entrepreneurs were in over their heads. The science of in vitro gametogenesis is dominated by a small cadre of university research groups who’ve been working on the problem for years. “When I talked to them, they had no clue, absolutely no clue, how to start a project,” says Albertini. “They were asking me what kind of equipment to buy. It was ‘How would you know if you made an egg? What would it look like?’”

To be honest, this was my first thought. I don't work directly in the field, but in a tangentially related field at an R1 research university, and I read through their research team and definitely got the sense that they were... certainly ambitious.

Obviously, I'm always in favor of more research in transformative technologies, in mostly whatever form that takes; but I do wonder about venture capital as the model for this type of research specifically.

>Perhaps a level of professionalism that you would expect from someone working at a fast food restaurant?

Uh, no. That's why I disagreed initially... I certainly don't have the same expectation of professionalism from someone handing me a burger and fries as compared with someone taking care of my kids for hours everyday (or multiple days a week).

>The fact that fast food restaurants can require less and pay more than ECE makes it sound exactly like a licensing problem.

Uh, also no? The article discusses this... Removing licensing requirements generally drives down wages... And, since wages are the primary problem already, how could this possibly be a licensing problem?

>As a father of 4, I think a person cannot possibly be professional enough to be super effective at teaching anything to 30 kids at a time, but anyone with a bit of diligence and a few basic techniques can teach something to a handful of kids at a time, so I'd lean towards getting a lot more people into the field while relaxing education/licensing requirements.

Even ignoring education, I expect more from simply an interaction and safety perspective for those that would care for my kids than from, for example, a fast food restaurant worker.

>But besides that, it sounds like there are just a lot more people who are attracted to ECE as a career, so the powers that be can pay less while demanding more education. That's a harder problem to solve.

Well the actual problem is that there is an enormous ECE worker shortage... Because of wages (and that it's a relatively difficult job compared with, for example, working in fast food)... Which is the entire problem... Which isn't going to be solved by removing licensing requirements (i.e. wages are not going to go up with fewer/no licensing requirements)...

I mostly disagree, I would like ECE to offer both a career for those that pursue it and a certain level of professionalism that I would not expect out of essentially a babysitter.

But, what's more important here is that, as it is currently, many fast food restaurants both require less and pay significantly more than ECE. The idea that this is simply a licensing problem is just incorrect.

> This seems like a weird take, but maybe I don't understand. Are you saying that the other parties are equally at fault for failing to prevail in negotiation against the unions?

Well, first, we've not actually been discussing any specifics about arbitration. The most specific we've been is acknowledging that arbitration is a point of failure, and that police unions are involved in negotiating over the arbitration framework. Neither of those things points explicitly to police unions as a point of blame. For example, arbitration problems often stem from lack of evidence, lack of consistency in application, and lack of increased punishment for repeat problem officers; none of these problems are directly related to the contracts negotiated by police unions (obviously they are indirectly related). Blaming police unions, simply because they represent officers, which is their mandate, is an oversimplification.

Additionally, systems like arbitration, or the arbitration framework contract negotiation, is predicated on the idea that both interested parties represent their position adequately, in good faith, and without conflict of interests (among other things); this is not always the case, but is the side that is representing their position adequately and in good faith (i.e. police unions, making it harder to fire "good" officers) to blame? Another example, in other terms, many people are punished unnecessarily by judicial systems because of inadequate defense (i.e. ineffective assistance of counsel), but is the prosecutor always to blame?

It's not that other parties are necessarily at fault for failing in negotiation, but that assumes that those parties adequately represented their interests (in this case, one of those interests would be the public interest), which is certainly not a given.

> I am not claiming that unions are a net detriment to police union workers, simply that there are tradeoffs.

With this in mind, I guess I should've rephrased my initial question. I should've said "can you provide some insight into how police unions work poorly for police officers generally (i.e. their members)?" Obviously there are cases where police unions (and other unions) work poorly for individuals, but I meant where they work poorly for their members overall. This is why I think your reply fails to fit my intended framing and I was rejecting the premise from that perspective.

> Pointing to arbitration seems to be passing the buck. The unions had a hand in negotiating the arbitration rules and criteria.

And simply pointing to unions, as opposed to the numerous other parties involved or the process itself, is also passing the buck. Do they have a role in the process and its perceived failure? Obviously, yes, but can we blame police unions for the failures of those that they are negotiating against, or that implement arbitration?

> Of course arbitration could result in just or unjust firing, but if you accept the premise that it currently too hard to fire bad cops, you have to look for what parties advocate for the position.

I actually don't accept this premise of what is good from the perspective of police officers (or most police officers), i.e. are police officers generally more concerned with what you raised or more supportive of the job protections that enable it; and this framing was the original ask. It might be clear that "it [is] currently too hard to fire bad cops" from the perspective of the general public, but I'm not sure police officers, who the union protects, would agree - despite your framing. I think it's unreasonable to expect unions to protect every interest among its members.

The same is obviously true for your example regarding teachers...

It is of course not a defensible position to say that all corporations only do things for profit (especially as it has not only to do with intent, but intent of an organization); even if it were true in all but a single case. Since that's what you've staked out your argument against, there's not much to discuss here.

That profit maximization is not legally obligated (or even "desirable") is not a particularly compelling counterpoint, many things are done that are both legally forbidden and undesirable (of course "desirable" for who is another discussion). Additionally, your Tim Cook quote, which I assume was your attempt at disproof by counterexample, is not particularly compelling either, primarily because it's simply a quote (especially considering there is abundant anecdotal evidence that corporations have the ability to do things for superficial intent other than profit, and many examples where that superficial intent is more defensible).

Also, what you read as "doh, that's what companies do (and must do)," I read as "it's naive to assume a for-profit company would prioritize anything over profit by choice." The second (but also the first) implies the necessity of a discussion about "the legal/regulatory framework within which the firm operates." They also both imply that expecting firms to simply "refrain" is naive, even if it superficially occurs.

I assume you don't literally mean "working next to," but instead mean police unions prevent abusive and/or violent officers from being fired; but, as far as I'm aware, the bigger problem is that frequently arbitration hearings find in favor of officers that have been fired (and are obviously supported by their union) resulting in reinstatement. Police unions don't have direct control over arbitration though, so arbitration reform seems to be the more pressing concern.

Of course you could easily make the same hypothetical argument that police officers, accused of some type of misconduct, need support from somewhere merely in the name of due process (much in the same way that legal counsel is seen as a right).